


you don’t give me love (pale shelter)

by gothoria



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Child Abuse, Cemetery, Character Study, Child Abuse, Closure, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Hotch’s abuse story deserved a whole plot line, Hurt Aaron Hotchner, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, Past Child Abuse, Sad with a Happy Ending, Short, Short & Sweet, Team as Family, Therapy, WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN, and ill never forgive cbs for sweeping it under the rug, fake perfect families, fuck if i know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25489189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothoria/pseuds/gothoria
Summary: “i know our situations were different, but you know we’re all here for you, right? i’m here for you. you’ve been like a father to me, and i don’t want to see you in pain.”he nods blindly. he can convince himself to believe it later, when the anniversary of his father’s death isn’t fresh on his mind.for now, he takes the lighter she holds out, and places it in his pocket. something will burn. his father isn’t around, so the photo album will do.(no more lies.)
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & David Rossi, Aaron Hotchner & Derek Morgan, Aaron Hotchner & Emily Prentiss, Aaron Hotchner & Jennifer "JJ" Jareau, Aaron Hotchner & Sean Hotchner, Aaron Hotchner & Spencer Reid, Aaron Hotchner & The BAU Team, Aaron Hotchner/Haley Hotchner, Haley and Aaron are like implied, Penelope Garcia & Aaron Hotchner, but she’s dead already so
Comments: 11
Kudos: 75





	you don’t give me love (pale shelter)

**Author's Note:**

> “a home isn’t always the house we live in. it’s also the people we choose to surround ourselves with.”
> 
> *this fic mentions child abuse and the injuries that come with abuse, if that sort of writing might trigger something, please consider not reading. stay safe, babes, take care of yourselves.

the grass has dried out. it’s the first thing aaron notices when he approaches his father’s grave. no one has picked up the wilted flowers left by the tombstone, no one has come by in such a long time that they’ve collapsed onto the ground and have spread it’s ashes onto the dirt. 

he’s not sure who would leave flowers. a passerby who was surprised to see no flowers on a grave? that’s the only answer aaron’s mind provides. if they knew what his father had done, they would’ve snatched the flowers up, given them to his family instead of a man who beat his sons and wife bloody. 

not many people knew what aaron had suffered under richard hotchner’s hand. they did not understand what rebecca hotchner had been forced to suffer through, what aaron had to suffer through. 

it’s mostly because he doesn’t like to talk about it. he never mentions it, implied it once to an unsub that was a mirror image of him. it scared him to see a man so like him, stuck in a child’s body, stuck in a mindset that every man was out to get them. 

aaron got lucky. he made the best of it, he got out of his insignificant town with nothing to his name but a few thousand bucks and a high school transcript so good that he got accepted into yale. he went to george washington university instead. it was closer to home. he could drop everything and come running back home if his mother needed him to. 

his mother. he would do anything for her. he took beatings for her, made his dad mad at him instead of his mom. he would sneak out and get first aid when the scraps and cuts dug a little too deep. he was hesitant to leave her, but she begged with him. 

she had a hopeless look in her green eyes when she told him to get out, to leave and don’t look back. she had muttered, “ _please aaron. you need to do this for sean and i. we can survive until you come back.”_

it’s been years since he last saw her. five, actually. he hopes she’s forgiven him for that. 

the grave is dusty. it has cobwebs running down the side of it, extending onto the earth it’s sitting on. he doesn’t wipe it away. he just sits down in front of it, the grass crunching under his legs. 

he clasps his hand together like he does when he’s interrogating someone. in a way, he is. he came here today to talk. 

it sounds funny when aaron thinks about it. who is he talking to? the air? the voice in his head? the ghost of his father? it’s most likely the latter. his father never gave him the answers he needed, was hard to profile when he learned how to and put his skills to use on him. 

“you know, i still flinch when someone brings their hand too close to my face, moves too fast in my direction. that’s your fault.” 

it’s happened more than once. he believes that no one notices, tells himself that no one saw the sudden motion that he took to get away from whoever moved too fast. any other person wouldn’t notice. any other person would think he didn’t even move.

his team are not just strangers though, and they have been around him long enough to know that aaron doesn’t scare easily. in fact, he’s the one that does the bad cop portion. he’s the one who yells at an unsub, not the one who gets scared of a hand being raised too quickly for his liking. 

rossi is the first to bring it up. it’s after a case, they’re all sat at their desks doing paperwork when rossi comes into his office. he knocks, sitting down in the chair in front of aaron’s desk before aaron can even say a word to protest. he knows what rossi is about to ask, had seen the questioning look in his eyes when aaron flinched away when morgan had thrown his hands up in exasperation. 

_strike one._

it will not make this conversation any easier, and frankly? he wishes rossi would just drop it. 

but, this is rossi. he’s always the one to make sure everyone is okay, the one that people go to when they need advice. “aaron? you alright?” he looks up to see rossi with his eyebrows raised. obviously, aaron hadn’t been paying attention. he had been too busy to notice the older man in front of him calling his name. 

_strike two._

rossi shakes his head, “aaron, have you been sleeping well? too much caffeine, aaron, what can i tell you?” aaron manages a chuckle, shakes his head and sets down the black pen on top of the report he’s working on, “not that. just distracted.” rossi looks at him with a questioning look, raises his eyebrows again to signal aaron to keep going. 

aaron sighs, leans back in his chair, “just.. i’m just distracted. really.” rossi doesn’t buy it, that’s clear as day. still, he must note the uncomfortable look on aaron’s face because he nods and taps his fingers on aaron’s desk. 

“well, you can talk to me about anything.” aaron nods, “i know.” it doesn’t settle rossi’s nerves, aaron can tell by the way rossi’s fingers haven’t stopped beating against the brown desk. rossi gives up though, he gets up from the chair and walks out of aaron’s office with little left to say. 

the incident reminds aaron that he needs to get better at getting over his childhood trauma. it’s been years, and he still flinches at the slightest sudden movement. it’s childish and aaron is supposed to be the BAU’s unit chief, not a child. 

strike three comes when he wakes the entire team with a nightmare. 

they’re on a case in virginia, the town aaron grew up in only a few miles away. spencer tells him a few months afterward that that’s probably what triggered the nightmare. the sudden return to a place where traumatic things occurred always affects the victim greatly. 

it’s not like they haven’t been to virginia, but this is the first time that they have been so close to his hometown that he could take a quick detour and take the team on a tour and still be able to make the plane on time. 

the case goes by rather quick but the first night is when he has the nightmare, and it throws the entire team off. they are concerned for him but it’s hard to open up so easily. he doesn’t have much of a choice when rossi tells him to talk about it. it also doesn’t help that jj is kind with her words, she uses the soft voice she reserves for her son when she speaks to him. 

the nightmare starts the same as all the others. aaron and sean standing at the top of their stairs, watching as their mother gets beat, punches raining down on her beautiful face, the sound of her broken nose echoes throughout the house. 

she is crying for him to help her, to, “ _save me, please aaron! save your mother!”_ he wants to run over to her, wants to throw punches at his father. when he goes to move towards her, he cannot. he is frozen in place, stuck to the wood paneling beneath his sock covered feet. he screams for his father to leave his mom alone, but his voice is strained and it comes out like a whisper. 

in the dream, that is. in reality, aaron is screaming, he is screaming bloody murder and his team is concerned. they’re all outside his room after they hear his scream, they stand there, unsure if they should go inside.

that is until aaron lets out another bloodcurdling scream. jj bursts inside the door, a motherly instinct in her pushing her to do so. they all settle around the bed, watching as jj tries to lure him out of his nightmare with soft and comforting words. 

he wakes with a jolt, sitting straight up in bed with his hands reaching out for his mother. “i’m.. i-i’m sorry for waking you all. i didn’t mean to. you can all go back.” morgan shakes his head, his arms crossed over his chest, which tells aaron that he won’t be letting this go anytime soon. 

“no way. what was that all about, hotch? i’m sure the people above us could hear you too.” aaron runs his hand down his face, sighing into the palm of his hand. “it was just a nightmare.” spencer’s voice is quiet but there is no other noise in the room, so it cuts straight through the silence, “it sounded like more. hotch, we’ve never heard you scream like that.” 

at this point, aaron is so tired that he just groans. “we can all go back to sleep if we just drop this, we have a case to focus on.” rossi sighs, shaking his head, “we need your head in the game too, aaron. that can’t happen if you’re having nightmares and won’t talk about them.” 

he sighs because he knows this is strike three and he’s out of the game. he knows rossi is right, and it makes it that much harder. he’s silent for a while. the only sounds are the ones of the a/c unit and of the crickets outside the window. “my father was.. he had a problem. he was under a lot of stress when he worked, and he took it out on us. my hometown is by here. it’s hard being back here, being so close.” 

he spills out the words so effortlessly, like he’s talking about a wonderful father, not one who beat him up every day of the week. there are faces of sympathy all around, a look of understanding coming from spencer and jj. spencer has told them all how, before his father left, he would take out his struggles on him. 

it’s part of the reason aaron tries not to be so tough on spencer. he tries to be more patient with him, tries to understand his outbursts and how they correlate. he doesn’t want spencer to look at aaron and see his father in his eyes. it’s the last thing aaron would want, to be compared to an abusive father, especially when he’s suffered at the hands of one. 

jj’s story is different. there was no physical abuse, more psychological abuse. her mom was a _**master**_ manipulator and made her feel bad for _every_ bad thing she did, made her feel _worthless_ and compared her so much that she would do anything to please her mom. it’s also why aaron treats her like the daughter he never had, why he tells her he _appreciates_ all she does, to tell her he is _proud of her_. 

they’re both victims, and now they know that he is too. they’re all staring at him like it. like they know _exactly_ what happened. for a moment, he fears the implications. he fears what they’ll think of him afterward. 

spencer speaks, like he’s able to hear all the thoughts running through aaron’s mind and knows that he needs some reassurance that he hasn’t drastically messed everything up, “we’ll do whatever you need to make you feel safe, hotch.” morgan nods, placing a hand on aaron’s shoulder. aaron notices that he slows before _**fully**_ clasping onto the skin. he is grateful for that. it’s so simple, but it means _so_ much to him. 

“kid’s right, hotch. you just say the word and we can get you out of anywhere, help you get through this.” 

they all say a small agreement. every single one of them wants to help aaron through this and it makes his cold exterior break even more. he doesn’t know what he would do if it wasn’t for this family. 

that night happened.. a few weeks ago now? time has been a blur since he came back from virginia. 

it doesn’t help that the anniversary is hitting him harder than ever. normally, he wouldn’t even think about it but seeing his father raining down punches on his mother in a nightmare set something off in aaron. 

it set off a switch, and aaron was angrier than ever before. he spent hours trying to remember every minor thing his father did to him, writing it down on spare paper he would grab from his desk. 

_broke my ribs more than once. beat momma so bad she had to be in the hospital for two days. broke my arm. broke sean’s leg. broke my nose and momma’s._

_made momma so crazy with fear that she wanted me to leave her._

he looks at the last one. for some reason, it hurts him more than all the physical injuries he’s received at the hands of his father. it hurts knowing that his mother didn’t want him around, because the thought scared her, that one day his father wouldn’t limit himself to bruises that could be easily covered with baggy clothes and sweaters. 

she feared the day that richard hotchner would lose his mind and finally beat aaron so badly that aaron would never wake up. 

most of the beatings were aaron’s fault. he can recognize that. he can understand that he wasn’t exactly the perfect child. he spoke too much, cursed like a sailor, smoked more cigarettes than any teenager should. he did more weed, drank more alcohol than should be allowed for any age. 

it was his coping mechanism. he would black out in someone’s house, it was almost always his best friend’s house, and wake up with a throbbing headache. it was better than waking up with shattered ribs and bruises that littered the entirety of his tiny body. 

now, his coping mechanism is talking to a therapist recommended by rossi. apparently she dealt with all kinds of trauma, which was the key word for unresolved trauma. he thanked rossi, told him how grateful he was. rossi shrugged it off, telling aaron, “was the least i could do.” to aaron, it meant the world. someone was putting an effort in to get him some help. 

even haley hadn’t done that. she had told him it was in the past, that he should move on. he didn’t know how to tell her he didn’t think he ever would. his abusive childhood had shaped him, had made him the man he was now. 

his therapist told him that that was a dangerous mindset. it didn’t shape him, not by itself. doctor henricks emphasized to aaron that many factors had shaped aaron. the abuse he had suffered not defined him. 

those words changed aaron. they’re the reason he’s here in this cemetery, hands patting down his pants to get the dirt off them. “you ruined me, dad. you know, i found this photo album last year. it’s so.. fake. we all have smiles like we’re some picture perfect family. like you didn’t beat us senseless because we were stupid..” 

he can hear leaves crunching behind him. it’s the team. he asked them here with a nervousness to him before emily told him they would go to the ends of the earth for him if he asked them to. he smiled softly and thanked them. he wasn’t expecting them all to show. 

it really wasn’t anything big. aaron just realized that the photo album he had kept, for no particular reason, symbolized everything aaron hated about his father. he wanted it to burn. wanted to set it aflame on his father’s grave and leave it there when the fire died out. 

how he would turn around and act like the greatest lawyer virginia had ever seen, act like he was the best husband in the states, act like he was the image of a dutiful father. _**he was anything but.**_ he would make them pose for photos with prim and proper clothes, instructing them to smile with a stern face and a hidden tone in his voice that sent shivers down aaron’s spine whenever he heard it. 

when jj places a hand on his shoulder, he doesn’t flinch. he stands up, holds his hands out to penelope who is holding the photo album close to her chest. 

she places it in his. it doesn’t feel as heavy anymore. 

he takes jj’s lighter out. he brings the flame to the edge of the album, watches as the fire consumes the photos of a perfect little family. 

it gets dangerously close to his fingers, so he sets it down on the tombstone. 

it burns so beautifully that aaron is tempted to scream out in release. 

they walk away from his father’s grave once the fire has been put out and the ashes of the album have mixed with the remains of the dead daisies. 

_no more lies._

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> uh was it good 😳 i really think we deserved to see more of hotch’s backstory sooo, here’s my two cents


End file.
